Doctor Who Series 10: 7 Big Questions We're Asking After 'The Eaters Of Light'
5. Did We Get Confirmation That The Doctor Can Change Gender?
The Doctor certainly gets about a bit, and though we all
know the Doctor lies, there’s no reason to doubt that he has indeed been to
Roman Britain and acted as a governor, farmer, and juggler (a possible nod to
the McCoy era). But a Vestal virgin? Really?
Nardole seems to be more bothered by the fact that the Doctor was only a ‘second class’ virgin, suggesting that the implied gender change wasn’t an issue for him. When Steven Moffat established that Time Lords can switch genders through regeneration with Missy, fans who had quietly written the Corsiar (The Doctor’s Wife) out of canon, had been at pains to suggest that she was a special case. Even though the General in Hell Bent confirmed that it can happen to any Time Lord, some are still hoping that when Simm returns in the finale it will be revealed that Missy isn’t really him.
At some point the Doctor will surely regenerate into a female form, and when he does, some explanation as to why he has been male for all of his lives for now will need to be offered. Perhaps though, this one throwaway line might offer an alternative view – what if the Doctor has already been a female, in another incarnation we know nothing about (a bit like the War Doctor, or the Morbius incarnations).
It could just be that once again there is sufficient leeway for interpretation with the unhistorical notion that he was a second class vestal virgin. Might this mean that he was masquerading as a woman? Or perhaps as a Grandmother she didn’t quite make the cut for obvious reasons.